Page 6 - Michael Journal 2020 March

of St. Joseph, Patron of the whole Church. The Encyc- Even today we have many reasons to pray in a
lical Letter, Quamquam Pluries, appealed to Joseph’s similar way: “Most beloved father, dispel the evil of
“fatherly love for the child Jesus” and commended falsehood and sin... graciously assist us from heaven
him as “the provident guardian of the divine Family”. in our struggle with the powers of darkness... and just
Since that time – as I recalled at the beginning of this as once you saved the Child Jesus from mortal dan-
Exhortation – the Church has implored the protec- ger, so now defend God’s holy Church from the snares
tion of St. Joseph on the basis of “that sacred bond of her enemies and from all adversity.” (Prayer to St.
of charity which united him to the Immaculate Virgin Joseph, contained immediately after the text of the
Mother of God,” and the Church has commended to Encyclical Letter.) Today we still have good reason to
Joseph all of her cares, including those dangers which commend everyone to St. Joseph. v
threaten the human family. Saint John Paul II

The two Josephs of the Old and New Testaments

Pope Leo XIII wrote in his dream that I had. We were
encyclical letter, Quamquam binding sheaves of grain out
Pluries, that it is the “opinion in the field when suddenly my
held by a large number of the sheaf rose and stood upright,
Fathers, to which the sacred while your sheaves gathered
liturgy gives its sanction, that around mine and bowed
the Joseph of ancient times, down to it... I had another
son of the patriarch Jacob, dream, and this time the sun
was the type of St. Joseph, and moon and eleven stars
and the former by his glory were bowing down to me.’”
prefigured the greatness of These dreams came true
the future guardian of the Holy in the life of the first patriarch
Family.” when his father Jacob took s
Father Michel Gasnier ex- his family to Egypt and bowed
plains at the beginning of his Joseph reveals himself down before Joseph, who be-
book, Joseph the Silent, that to his brothers (Gn 45) came viceroy of the country
not only did they have the and provided food as father
same name, they were also alike in their virtues: of the peoples of the earth. One can see that he
both men experienced lives of trials, joys and sur- foreshadowed the mystery of Nazareth when the
prising coincidences. world would be amazed because Jesus, the Son of
Both of them – two just men in every sense Justice, and Mary, praised in the liturgy as a beauti-
of the word – gave themselves body and soul to ful and bright white moon, became subject to the
the missions entrusted to them. The two Josephs, authority of the New Testament Joseph, head of
by a series of providential circumstances, went the household.
to Egypt: the first, persecuted and delivered by Pharaoh, amazed at the wisdom of Joseph left
his brothers because of a fierce jealousy, and the the kingdom’s government in his hands, saying
second, fleeing the jealous rage of Herod to save to those who came to see him: Go to Joseph (in
the One who was the Pure Wheat of the elect. Latin, Ite ad Joseph) and do whatever he tells you.
God gave the Joseph of the Old Testament the Likewise, the second Joseph was commissioned to
gift of interpreting dreams and thus he was warned earn the bread for the Holy Family in Nazareth and
of what was imminent. The new Joseph received later to be designated the official defender of the
the Lord’s messages through a dream. He was to Church.
accept Mary as his wife and flee immediately to Another virtue, chastity, is common to both Jo-
Egypt to save the Child from the soldiers of Herod. sephs and completes the fascinating parallels. The
One can say that the dreams of the Old Testa- first rejected the shameful incitement of Potiphar’s
ment Joseph only saw their full realization in the wife. Even more perfect was the chastity of the
mission of the second Joseph. The book of Gen- second Joseph who, knowing that God had placed
esis says about the first Joseph (37:5-10): “Joseph under his protection the purest of creatures, the
had a dream, which he told his brothers, they hated wife of the Holy Spirit, he treated her with sover-
him all the more. He said to them, ‘Listen to this eign respect and provided her a very pure love. v

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